Astrology of 3/8 – 3/14: The Compassion of Discernment

The Venus and Mars in Aries storylines have been ramping up the heat. We’re also building toward a Full Moon in Virgo this week and this is classically a high-energy time of the Moon cycle. Mars will settle into Taurus at the start of the week but by the end of the week Mercury will enter Aries. Venus in Aries is currently retrograde; so the Aries-Venusian themes remain poignant in consciousness. How do we relate to our impulses? Does our love language allow for immediacy? Venus retrograde is going to be a thrum in the background to listen to: what is love really to us, as impulsive creatures who react to things whether or not we want to? What do these impulses and reactions tell us? What is our destiny? How do we make space for our individuation and our ambition? How do we interact with others: co-dependently, as teammates, as forces to reckon with? Do we love our own destinies enough to honor them, both in our choices of solitude and our choices of connection? What does a love based off of energized free-will between parties look like? If we have to look at it in the mirror; how many of our choices are based on insecurity and fear, and where is there passion and YES? In her heights, Venus in Aries is not afraid to traverse the battlefield that is the emergence of one’s true love nature, and the search for that authentic love in oneself and in the mirror of other.

Announcements:

1. Remember that planetary aspects are building before their exact transit time, and have effect after, so though I provide dates and times below, there is going to be a build up and follow up.
2. Meet me for a live Q&A on the Facebook page, Tuesday March 14th at 12 PM PST. Ask me anything! If you can’t make it and still have a question, feel free to email me at sabrina@monarchastrology.com with your question. I’ll just refer to you by first name or a code name if you’d like!
3. Astrology readings with me are still just $30 an hour… which is allowing me to work a lot and practice! I have been getting excellent feedback also. You can read more about this offering and schedule a session with me here.
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Mercury in Pisces is just a few degrees past the Sun, and so it is engaging in this sextile aspect as well with Pluto. This transit can both bring to light, and dissolve, shadow aspects of self.

The pitfall here would be to get more dramatic about the shadow, to spin and spiral about it when it’s coming up to be released and transmuted. It needs to be met with love (Pisces) and understanding for the conditions that birthed it. That is the insight that helps release it.

It is easy to feel futility in the sense of “this is just the way things are”, but this would be a delusion of Pisces. The Pluto in Capricorn storylines are transmutational. The obstacle is the path.

Mars enters Taurus: 4:34 PM PST

(Image: Edvard Munch)

Mars’ entrance into Taurus coincides with the nodal axis of the Moon; Mars will trine the North Node in Virgo and sextile the South Node in Pisces. In simple terms; this is a time of ease for acting upon our health and wellness: making discerning choices which purify our lives.

A sluggishness sets in when one is overwhelmed and therefore doesn’t do anything. Small steps and keeping one foot in front of the other, begins the formidable engine of this transit. Here momentum is a collection of small tasks built up. Though grand visions may exist; the will may need them parceled into digestible chunks to begin executing plans.

Taurus is said to be a peaceful, gentle sign. Mars in Taurus is then like a gentle beast. Think of the ways in which your will is activated towards peace and harmony in a steady cultivated way, such as tending a garden.

People such as athletes who regularly access the arena of Mars, may notice a slowing down of energy. Mars in Aries was ramped up, quick to go, quick to settle. Mars in Taurus creates more of a slow burn; and it might also come under attention which foods (Taurus often relates to the world through the mouth!) increase or decrease energy levels. Much vitality will come through being receptive to feeling and sensation while doing; rather than just simply doing.

What’s sexy in Mars in Taurus’ world is opening to feeling, pleasure, sensation and receiving. Mars as an energy is active and penetrative; and Taurus is about our inner world and inner values. So much of what is sexy and juicy about life and intimacy is what we feel internally and how deep that goes. This applies to all genders/orientations; the ability to be receptive to pleasure. As a general tantric concept this is inclusive of all aspects of life besides direct sexual exchange: our ability to be receptive expands what we are capable of receiving. This can be about things like money and resources, as well as friendship and love.

Examine where you feel obstinate or non-budging, and if this is a defense mechanism that is not helping you or if it is really an empowered construct for you. The defense mechanism is built around fear or avoidance typically, while the empowered construct would feel energizing. Is there a gem behind the gate to uncover? Or are you actually protecting something?

Imaginative cognition is a medicine here (Mercury is also conjunct Chiron and highlighting the Saturn-Chiron square). It may come directly up against a sense of being jaded (Saturn). We actually get to choose whether we want to be delusional with our negativity (thinking something that is possible is not possible) or imaginative with our thinking (seeking answers and solutions to complex problems.)

Causes of anxiety that have practical, energized solutions; crisis that can be expanded upon at length or dealt with. It’s the ability to blow up small things into larger conflicts/crises or to listen more diligently to what these small things point to: the same expansion can be felt as the ‘reward’ energetically or literally for meeting the problem as an opportunity for growth.

Cynicism is a friend of the status quo: creative intelligence is the friend of our personal and social revolutions. Despair is usually linked to error in logic/belief. Dark nights of the Soul are part of a process of greater opening and greater receiving. It might be necessary to feel those pits and doldrums but it’s not necessary to believe they are an ending point.

Full Moon in Virgo: 7:54 AM PST

The Sun in Pisces will be conjunct Athena, Chiron and Mercury – each of which oppose the Moon in Virgo. Virgo is ruled by Mercury and it is an interesting alignment for this Full Moon’s ruler to be opposite the Moon and in the opposite sign. Here are some things to look for:

The polarity between criticism and compassion, and the way this polarity dissolves (such as with discernment).

We might need to look out for where we are drawing imaginary distinctions, such as the concept that it is okay to be attached to a person for example, but not to a material item. This is an arbitrary logical structure, full of a variety of judgements. The zen gardens we make in our mind by raking the sand and drawing lines, affects and constitutes much of our reality.

Overthinking is not a problem, “thinking too much” is also not necessarily a negative thing. It’s about the conclusions and beliefs these thoughts point to. It’s about not being able to be present with a reality because it needs to be put into cognition to be known. In a reality in which thoughts are things (and have gravity), thoughts are part of our reality like anything else and have their own way that they “work” or “don’t work”, which is up to us to discover and workshop.

It is important for our very health and wellbeing to be familiar with mental constructs which open the heart and vitalize the spirit. Because our cognition organizes our perception of reality, it is actually super magical to read self-help books or see a therapist or whatever it is we do to gain insight about ourselves and the condition of humanity. It’s healthy to build an awareness of what information helps us connect more to ourselves and to reality, versus what information provokes anxiety.

Oppositions in opinion or ways of thinking coming up in encounters with people in passing or people that we are in relation to, pointing to distinctions in what it is we think or believe. What we are wiling to digest (Virgo) or not.

Anxiety is not a static condition, and it can be treated superficially (only to return) or dissolved at the root by an insight or change which makes it irrelevant. Superficially dealing with anxiety is like buying time – it is a useful resource to be used in tandem with getting to the root or changing the overall situation such that the anxiety becomes irrelevant. That is a process which can itself take time so having positive ways to manage stress and anxiety is a reasonable thing to do. It’s important to not get addicted to the superficial help as to not ever address the core issue, in which case the avoided thing comes up in other ways.

Mercury enters Aries with a few traditionally uncomfortable aspects: it is balsamic semisextile to Aries’ ruler Mars in Taurus, and inconjunct the North Node in Virgo, semisextile the South Node in Pisces. So the word “irritating” comes to mind. Here are a few clarifications and balms I can offer on that-

The sense that some process is already in motion which now needs an adjustment – and the potential anxiety around “well, it’s already going this one way so why interrupt?” The interruption is part of the cultivation – it is organic.

Recognizing how aligned or misaligned we are with the ability to speak our mind and say what we need to say in the moment it is desired (rather than knowing just what to say after the moment has passed). This speaks to our fluency in conflict and our fluency with confrontation, as opposed to our fluency in maintaining peace while walking on eggshells. Also, it speaks to the fluency of impulse, if we trust our impulses or if our impulses are ugly to us and always things we are needing to refine. The impulse can be in alignment with one’s deeper intentions and higher self if that connection is forged through deep self awareness. The idea of “training one’s communication” comes to mind in the sense that we speak and interact in the ways we’ve learned/been conditioned. We can actively take that conditioning process into our own hands too, with will and inspiring educational resources.

Emerging awareness that something needs to change but not knowing what that change specifically is yet. Holding open ended questions and/or prayers with the Universe to facilitate this process, rather than shutting down out of frustration.

The awareness that ignoring little irritants out of complacency keeps those little conflicts part of the overall landscape – things which are, well, irritating to always take into accountability. It is cleaner to be honest and to address these uncomfortable spots, though it threatens an immediate peace or status quo.

The right to exist — and how self-diminishment is a psychological irritant. Some of the things we are afraid to bring forth are things which we do not know how to wield – like the quality of cardinal fire, Aries. There are conscientious ways to begin training these unwieldy parts of ourselves so that they can emerge into existence in ways that don’t just nourish our own impulse to become who we are, but also nourish the social world around us because we are valuing the way we contribute to humanity rather than hiding and practicing avoidance, based off the unconscious assumption that some part of ourselves is not worthy even though we were born with it. In this case, being oneself might also correlate with leaving specific others alone; antagonism is not the only available action but is often a reflection of holding others’ responsible for “getting in the way” of one’s destiny. Aries is really defensive!

As Mercury continues through Aries, it brings impulsive self-discovery into the medium of communication – the possibly of a lot of newness in the air in terms of our ideas and the way we phrase our sentiments to one another. It learns by doing, or here by saying. it’s a time to allow communication to be a field of discovery, rather than holding people or ourselves super accountable to staying the same in terms of our thoughts or the things we say. Simple verbal expressions are not agreements or promises, unless they are.